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If you have been watching lately, you’ve noticed I haven’t been crafting or scrapbooking in a LONG time. I don’t know why, but I was feeling very creatively blocked. I love my photo’s and especially after Sawyer, I had an abundance of beautiful moments in print. But something was lacking on my side. Suddenly after the Teresa Collins Inspiration Unlimited event in my home town of Las Vegas, I felt inspired. {best titled weekend apparently.} 

I was hooked again. And when she released her new lines it only doubled. I bought them all. And I have been playing and enjoying the scrapbooking world again. In fact while I am away I am even scrapbooking! Who would have thought. I hadn’t done anything in over a year and now I am not even stopping during a holiday! My mom brought along some monthly class kits she had stocked up. So when Sawyer goes to bed, I break out the paper, scissors and glue!

Here’s the album I am working on. From the Teresa Collins Now& Then Line. This isn’t typically a line I was drawn to. I too obsessed with the Tell your Story Line to dive into another. But it was in the pile of collections my mom brought along and I thought it was so perfect for creating a mini album for this trip!

I have just created the base pages and will fill it with the photo’s, and embellishments when I get home. {I just ordered some extra’s to my house!} But I made lots of pocket pages and flaps and fun add on’s. I am going to get adding a little to the pages these last days. We also found a little  scrapbooking store in the little town nearby! It was our fun little thing today as the rain poured down on us! I got a whole bunch of cute new stuff! I can’t wait to keep sharing all the new mini albums with you!

Sawyer and I braved the airport alone Thursday morning. It was ALMOST an easy feat. He was so good running around the airport, and fell asleep for half the flight. Woke up and got to play with the untouchable ipad, special treat! But getting off the plane he had THE biggest meltdown on the planet. Bonus though, because of it I had flight attendants tripping over themselves to help me off the plane. As well as getting to skip the super long customs line up! And we took this challenge to fly to Victoria, BC to see my parent’s in a cabin they rented on the ocean to celebrate my mom’s 50th birthday! It wasn’t an easy feat, but when I see Sawyer just lighting up playing here, it sure seem’s worth it! Or maybe it’s my parents lighting up just as much playing with him.

And listening to the rain come down in buckets every day may be a nightmare on most vacations, but I am that crazy person that is overjoyed with it! Plus it makes for some pretty amazing pictures! This was Sawyer on the first day out. We quickly were scouring for new rubber boots, after the first pair mommy bought in Vegas were too big, and the pair I got here were too tight on those CHUNKY legs. We finally got lucky at a little second hand kids store! New red rubber boots! TOO CUTE! And he absolutely loves them. Can you tell?

We miss Daddy so much! But we will be out enjoying this life for awhile. Check back for some more adventures soon!

These are the day’s that are especially hard to live 1,300 miles away from my family. If I was home I would have given you 50 hugs and Sawyer would have given you 50 kisses! But life is not always perfect and I can do all that in just one week! We are so excited to be joining my Mom in BC, she rented a cabin for a month to celebrate 50 amazing years. And each week she gets a new special visitor! So I, the worst flyer in the world, agreed to take my 1 1/2 year old on a plane by myself! I must love you a lot Mom!

For those of you who don’t know my Mom, let me tell you about an amazing woman. She was born in Denmark, on her parent’s farm. Where they happily lived for the first 4 years of her life. But my Grandparent’s decided the move their entire family to a new country, Canada. So they jumped on a plane to start a whole new adventure, in a country they didn’t know, and a language they didn’t speak. She overcame such a big life change so early in life that she knew she was destined for great things. She pursued her passion early in life and was assisting by 16. She met the man of her dreams a year later but wouldn’t let him know that for another 3 years. She traveled on her own back to Denmark, and again to Australia. {Reading her diaries she kept from those trips inspired me to travel on my own before getting married!} When she came back she realized she still loved that surprisingly shy guy. He proposed in the rain in 1982 and a year later in all 80’s fashion, they were married.

Four year’s later THE GREATEST GIFT EVER WAS BLESSED TO THEM! I was born, followed shortly by a a slightly less {love you too kimmy} greatest gift, my little sister. There was year’s of struggling and and pursuing her dream even further. Soon she had worked hard enough to open her own Salon. Before long they were expanding to a bigger location. She is one of the most amazing business woman I know. Her staff is extremely lucky to have such an amazing boss. She worked so hard and all to give us the perfect life. We didn’t have everything but because of their hard work we had a beautiful house and took amazing trips as a family. She was diagnosed with melanoma early in life. An extremely scary life threatening skin cancer. {this is why I lecture everyone I know about staying safe with sun and skin care.} I was too young to realize at the time how fearful the future was for her. But like everything else in life, she took it on whole heartedly and went into remission. I often still think about how differently things could have gone, and how much I know she mean’s to me. She inspired my love of both scrapbooking and photography. She makes me smile every time we are together. One of the biggest things she has given me, is continuing to visit me a country away, whenever I need it. She has just started the new adventure of being a Grandma, and like everything else in her life, she excel’s in it. I love to watch both her and Sawyer light up when they are around each other.

 My mother has truly lead an exceptional life. And today we are all celebrating those 50 special years. It’s amazing to see how many other people also love my Mother. But of course I love her the most! Happy Birthday Mom, you are the most amazing woman I know. I treasure every minute we are together. Can’t wait to see you in less than a week! I love you. 

I had to add one good old picture! Happy 50th Birthday Mom.

I have to confess, I LOVE making princess cakes. Not just love, Love Love. So I jumped at the chance to make one of the sweetest little princesses I know, her own princess cake. Bonus for it being Ariel, a cake I have been dying to make but couldn’t justify as a casual for myself cake.

She was definitely one of my favorites growing up. {Especially since my very thoughtful mom edited out the part where Ursula grows out of the ocean and ruins everything. Nope I had a much happier version of The Little Mermaid.} She held a special kind of magic the other princesses didn’t have. Which is why I felt so terrible ripping off her so preciously acquired legs…But some things just have to be done in the name of great cakes.

The Mom wanted some rings for the kids in the cupcakes and actually came up with the idea for the Sebastian cupcakes. I love them so much that I am going to run with the idea on many other theme’s! {they can be found at party city or online.}

 

I’m so happy with the way this one turned out!

Well it may not be like the good old days where I could surprise you with a locker full of balloons, {And you thought no one cared about you that morning!} It gets harder each year that we are apart to come up with creative birthday wishes. I have to say my second favorite was putting a package in the mail to tell you about becoming an auntie! It was in the mail on your Birthday and delivered for Valentines day. Excellent timing if I do say so myself! Your a wonderful Auntie and I know Sawyer and the future twinkles in our eye’s will come to treasure that relationship. I mean who else would do anything to get a smile out of a stubborn little boy? I love you for that, hate me for posting this…

 

This year I was even able to save on the postage and send your present home with mom. But I wish I could deliver it in person. I hope you enjoyed it! I had fun picking out things for you and your newly made life. A little necklace with two little birds. You can choose to imagine them as you and I, or how I did when I first saw it, Momma and Brax. All you need is each other. And I hope this new year for you has shown you how strong you are and what an unbelievable thing it is to love a new baby. I see you with him and I know with every inch of my heart that you will be the best mom he could ever have. {Though I think Sawyer would argue with you on that one, but let’s face it we all can’t be as amazing as his mom, wink wink}

I hope you had a wonderful and surprising evening surrounded by all the best people in your life! {Again, except the most important, moi} I cant wait to make more memories with you this year. I feel that we have been able to come a long way in the last year and it is something not everyone could have done. Whether on our trips we have planned, or by distance, I know each day we become more like friends again, and of course sister’s when you steal my shirt or so on! I mean come on, it’s so easy to argue with you, because your ALWAYS wrong!

 

Happy Birthday Big Little Sister.

I love checking my site for pinterest pins. I am still seeing Sawyer’s First Halloween Costume being pinned like crazy. But I was looking last night and saw that the one and only Sara Lee Desserts had pinned my own {favorite} Strawberry Trifle.

Not only had they pinned it, but they made it the cover for their trifle board. I commented on it thanking them for making my day. And the wrote back right away.

 

Sometimes it’s the little joys in life. I hope your all having a wonderful Monday!

Here I am laying it all on the line. I am the worst resolution keeper. And I basically always try to establish the same ones every January. So here we go again.

Get my house cleaned top to bottom, and reorganized

I’ve already been going through certain rooms and reorganizing them. We are {finger crossed} hopefully moving sometime this year and I want to declutter our living space. So far I’ve done our master bath, both our closets and I’m working on our bedroom. There is a lot of other rooms ahead! I will be sharing the little projects I’ve found on pinterest to help with the cleanse.

Focus on ME

This one may sound weird but its a very important one. If not the most important. And I do not mean it in a self absorbed way. Since I got pregnant way back in the beginning of 2011 I have almost exclusively lived in sweatpants, my hair in a messy bun and no makeup. This is miles away from the girly girl I used to be. First it was that I felt huge and pregnant. I showed fast and then continued to grow at an alarming rate even for my doctor. Do we all remember one of the last photo’s I posted of my pregnancy? The one everyone was sure I was carrying multiples and was 60 weeks along? It’s hard to feel like dressing up during that phase of my life. So I want to get up each morning, even if we do nothing but play with Sawyer’s gumball machine and watch the Disney channel. I just want to feel more like the girly girl I once loved being.

Dive headfirst into crafting again

I love the creativity in life. And even though some of my reader’s believe I am still creative, I have felt that crafting, especially scrapbooking was on the back burner for the last 2 years. First it was that I felt like I had a creative block, and then I had a literal block in my life when Sawyer started taking up all my time. Its not a great excuse, which is why I am not letting it hold me back anymore. I mean come on, I take enough pictures to scrapbook for the rest of my life already. I also feel like all my resolutions tie into each other because I need to cleanse the scrapbooking room and reorganize it especially. I always feel like I just make a mess instead of actually crafting.

Blog more often and more creatively

I felt like I had a surge in follower’s through Sawyer’s cranio journey. It gave me a purpose with the blog. Since then I have felt like nothing was interesting enough to blog about. I always put it off or just plain leave it too long and never get to it. I want to write more often. I want to do blog challenges like “what I wore Wednesday” from The Pleated Poppy, the “Let’s do 52 Project” from Paint the Moon, and “Scrappy Sunday” from Just me, my solider, and our 4 chicks. I want to share some of my favorite quotes once a week in prewritten post’s. This is another big one. This year I seem to be wanting to do major overhauls on my life.

O ya and fix and finish the blog! Thanks you for being patient!

 

By month here are my top moments of 2012

January: And so begin’s the year of Sawyer, also known as the year of a million photo’s. {not an exaggeration.}

February: I took my first ever client of lissables photography. I didn’t launch my page until much later in the year but I began practicing more and more. This is still one of my most favorite images I’ve done. 

March: We celebrated my hubby’s 27th birthday. {Holy when did we start getting old? I could have sworn it was yesterday and we were getting married at 21 and 23.}

April: We celebrated our first Easter with our own little Easter Bunny. 

May: My first Niece ‘Parker June’ was born.

June: We got through this. 

July: I celebrated my 25th Birthday.

August: My sister’s first son was born. My first Nephew on my side. And I was even lucky enough to be home for it.

September: Sawyer took his first steps. And then a million more. Instant walker. 

October: Sawyer turned one! And at his birthday we raised over $500.00 for craniocarebears.org in lieu of birthday present’s. 

November: I finally lost my pregnancy weight, taking longer than normal {Because I eat my feelings and there was a lot of feelings March-June}I updated my wardrobe and actually started feeling good about myself again! Big ‘Me’ moment.

December: We celebrated Christmas at home with family. And started looking forward to all the amazing moments yet to come in 2013.

and one for good luck! 

 

You may notice we have a different look today!

My wonderful and thoughtful husband spent two hours working on my website last night. Updating the look and software for it. Unfortunately its still in the process of being finished, so bear with me while we get it all up and running. I am super excited about this, we’ll be back to normal asap!

As for today. MERRY CHRISTMAS! To all my friends, family, and loyal reader’s. This has been an amazing year thank you for sharing it with us!

Hey guys. Are you looking for some last minute gifts, maybe some add on’s that you want to make yourself. I have the perfect thing for any little girls in your life. I promise this is an any level of craftiness project!

Here are your supplies!

1 {empty} Oats container

1 candle stick. Can be any style. I happen to already have this one, I spray painted it 2 coats with Antique white.

Paper {or fabric} to wrap around container. I used paper so I needed 2 sheets of 12×12

Hot Glue Gun for attaching Candle stick to container

I used Glossy Accents to attach my paper to the container.

It’s pretty self explanatory. I saw them all over etsy but I knew they were easy enough to make myself. Empty and clean the Oats container. Cover with paper or fabric of your choice. Attach candle stick to bottom of container with hot glue. And that’s about it. When I attached the candle stick and paper I hold it for about 1 minute to make sure its solid. I left the top off so it can be used for hair clips, socks, extra headbands or anything else that doesn’t have a spot in a little girl’s room. Double the storage!

In case you are wondering I DID NOT make the headbands. I found them on etsy in Poncho Dean’s Shop. I also got myself a headband and hair clip too! And she was running an awesome sale with free baby sandals when I ordered. Watch her on FB for similar sales.

Hope everyone is enjoying the bustle before Christmas, and remembering to love everyone a little extra this holiday season.