more scrapbooking...

for you digital and hybrid scrapbookers, katja kromann posted a new kit in her shop - "happiness is..." the kit has turquoise and reds and browns - gorgeous colors - combined with beautiful textures and patterns. and for all scrappers she has a great set of tags perfect for printing and journaling on. just go to her website and click on the word "shop" on the left. she also has a gorgeous free kit in her shop a little down on the page if you want to give digi a try. i made this page with her new kit for the 2ps2sday digi chat.

and in it kit studio news - as of 11 am there were only 13 kits left!
eta: now they are sold out!!!! i'm so happy for and proud of kelly! way to go, friend!!!

this is IT!...

today is the day the IT Kit website goes live! IT's amazing! the kit is so gorgeous. the IT girls are all sooooo amazingly talented! be sure to check it out and order FAST before the kits sell out!!! i have been doing more digital scrapping lately but this gorgeous kit has inspired me to pull out my paper more often. i LOVE IT!!!

a little horn tootin'...

the sweet ladies at disc talk radio chose to feature my quote book mini album on their weekly radio webcast. i am blushing at all of the sweet things they said! thanks shanah and deann!!!

happy national scrapbook day!...

...one day late. lol! i was too busy partying to remember to blog. hee! i was asked, along with about 180 other scrapbookers, to have a layout displayed in the 2 peas user inspiration gallery. i was SO honored! the gallery is FULL of AMAZING pages! here's a link - Two Peas User Inspiration Gallery.

i wanted to do something different for my page, but i had the hardest time thinking of something. of course i always find it harder to think of something when i am putting the pressure on myself to make something great. hee! i remembered seeing a contest on two peas a few months ago for doing a page about why you scrapbook. of course this contest has been over for awhile now, you know me - always late, but i thought it was a FABULOUS idea! and i'm hoping kurt will see it and understand why our house is so messy and we eat a lot of macaroni and cheese. so that was a great starting out point for me. since this was a page specifically for 2 peas i wanted to showcase all of my favorite 2 peas products and designers. but, well, of course i couldn't chose just one digi designer so i thought how fun to use one from each! so here is my page... if you are a scrapper and would like to see which elements are from whom the supplies are listed on the page in my 2 peas gallery and the journaling is typed out there too, if it's too hard to read.

more ella...

had to write this one down as soon as i could --- ella came over and danced the maniac dance right next to me and said, "this is how you start a morning!" :D

"wittle ewwa"...

...grew up more today. :( i saw it happening. first kurt told her. then the neighbor girls caught on. before long they taught her that her name is ella, not "ewwa." and now she's saying all of her l's correctly. every once in a while when she's tired a "w" sneaks in. but everytime she says an l word so perfectly pronounced it just breaks my heart. i'm so proud of her, but i'm just not ready for her to grow up! :( here are just a few pictures of her from her preschool program today - i'm hoping to add a few more later - although i did a terrible job of taking pictures! she was really nervous on stage and i was afraid my picture taking was making it worse. she perked up when it was time to show us her artwork, though. :)

another one...

i didn't really intend to post all the layouts i do on my blog, but i'm glad to finally be back in the groove. and hopefully now i'll be getting a lot more time to scrap. kurt's last day of his exec job is tomorrow! yay! so after a week of vacation we'll be starting a new schedule. it will be interesting to see what that means. but surely it can't be worse, right??? here's hoping!

happy scrapping...

katja kromann has two gorgeous new digi kits in her shop. the "spring in your step" kit totally inspired this page of e. notice i said, "when you are happy this is how you are." i really, really need to do a page of the flip side. lol! we love her no matter what mood she's in. hee! ;)

in case you were wondering...

what that last post was about, apparently ella was playing on the computer and posted that all by herself!!! i have NO clue how! lol! look for rosadita stories coming soon! ;)

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weekend happenings...

sunday we took wilson to his first baseball game - the omaha royals were hosting the albuquerque isotopes. everyone had a great time! wilson always loves to clap along whenever anyone else is clapping - whether in person or on tv. the girls enjoyed the game too - ella was really quiet and just took it all in and anna was busy trying to learn all of the rules of the game. we made a quick stop at the zoo afterwards.

this morning the girls were in such a good mood! we bought them matching pink nightgowns and ella said it was her new favorite. they colored together, said they love each other, and even let me take their picture!!! never fear, though. they started bickering and arguing about 10 minutes later. lol! really most of the time they get along so well. i wouldn't think they were normal if they didn't argue every now and then. ;) ooh and ella declared that really she didn't like her new pj's and wanted to go back to her old pink nightgown. i tried!!!!

IT's coming!!!!

the IT kit!!! i'm so excited! kelly has amazing taste and i can't wait to see her unique compilations of wonderful scrappy things. Click here to find out more! http://www.itkitstudio.com/

don't fall over...

but i actually got a chance to scrapbook again. finally! funny how inspiring deadlines can be! ;) i've been working with the "in the mood" cd from digital scrapbook memories. so fun! the first one was kind of unintentionally inspired by miley. her pages are so amazing! this one must have really stuck in my head - it wasn't until after i finished mine that i realized mine was kind of like it. (i soooo love hers more - so many perfect little details!)

while we're kind of on the subject of the bagels, please keep becca and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

bike pictures!

sorry they took so long!!! please ignore our messy basement. :)

spring break day 5...

thank goodness. ha! we've had a blast, but my patience ran out, some time around about 2-ish. hee! we skipped the art museum because everyone was still tired and wilson was quite a bit cranky. well and me too. ;) anna had a playdate, too, so that was good for her. she let me give her a french braid this afternoon and i think she was just a little proud of it. she let me take her picture and gave me all kinds of poses. i'll post a few more later, and pictures of her on her bike, but this is my favorite so far. except that she looks sooooo old!!! :( :( :(

spring break day 4...

well, no pictures from spring break day 4. mommy needed a jammie day. ;) i've been so tired lately! so we didn't make it to the art museum as planned. hopefully tomorrow! i did get to go to dinner with the bagels and it was soooo fun. those girls are just the best!!! becky novacek took pictures of kurt and i before our ball on saturday. she brought them to me tonight and it made me teary seeing them again. she's sooo talented and has such an incredible knack for capturing people's personalities through her lens. here's a picture of my dad and wilson that i just love. i love them all!!! (thank you so much again, becky!!!)

spring break day 3...

at the zoo! we went to bagels and then straight to the zoo for the whole afternoon. phew! i am beat!!! we all had SUCH a great time!!! it was really the first time that wilson knew what was going on, and he was so excited!!! we got to see a baby orangutan and it was adorable! (thanks again, denise, for telling us about it!)

(these pictures are not the greatest. i really needed my other lens, which of course was in the car. bummer!)

zoo

(ps - sorry kelly - i will blog anna's bike tomorrow. we got home too late today. she reminded me many times, though! ;) )

happy birthday, anna!

i can't believe it's been 6 years since my little sweetheart was born. it seems like yesterday!

hee - ps - i made this collage with picasa and it repeated some of the images. oops! didn't know it would do that. back to lumapix for me. ;)

snakes and bird skulls...

oh my!!! day 1 of spring break. we went to fontenelle forest for "mud pies." it was so fun! the kids made little crafts to go with animal sounds - plastc eggs filled with bird seed to resemble rattle snake sounds, toilet paper tubes covered with wax paper that vibrate and sound like cicada's... stuff like that. fun times! after craft time a lady brought out a snake for the kids to touch. anna was so brave! she said it felt like a washcloth - actually soft, not slimy. as the lady was getting the snake ready to leave the snake climbed into her shirt and wrapped around her. holy smokes! i smiled and acted non-chalant trying to be a cool mom, but inside i was freaking out!!! lol! we grabbed lunch at mcd's and then went back to explore the trails. well we only made it around one trail because we had to stop and read EVERY placard along the way. anna is her daddy's girl! ;) we learned A LOT about lewis and clark. hee! the girls are outside enjoying what is supposed to be the one warm day of the week. and i'm about ready to drop. and it's only monday! eek! lol!

oops!

you know how when you start getting rid of things you have the urge to buy more to fill the space? well - i took more pictures - and they took up way more hard drive space than i managed to delete yesterday. lol! but i did get some fun ones! anna got to celebrate her birthday at school today so i brought the camera along just in case anything special was going on. she was too embarassed to let me take her picture with her teacher, but i finally convinced her to let me take some while they were looking for 4 leaf clovers. :) willsie wasn't so cooperative because he was ready for a nap. but i did get one of him with one of his favorite new expressions. i'm afraid he might give ella a run for her money!

get ready...

for a slew of blog posts. maybe even more tonight! hee! i am running out of hard drive space on my laptop so i'm finally forced to sort through pictures and delete some. what would really be a GREAT solution would for me to install photoshop on our new computer upstairs with a widescreen true color monitor and a 320 gb hard drive. but that would involve me finding the mysteriously vanishing photoshop disk. ;) so here come the pictures. hee! this one was taken of ella just a few days ago in her new favorite dress. she has worn it at least 6 times in the past two weeks. and not always clean, obviously. i even resorted to spraying febreeze on it one day. ew!!! it seems to have replaced the shredded pink nightgown for during the daytime, though, so that is a GOOD thing! ;) and also, her flip flops are 2 sizes too small and her little heels hang off the end. i haven't managed to get a picture of that yet. they are her absolute favorites, though. i took her to two shoe departments including von maur and shopped on zappos and piperline online with her, and i still can't find any that she likes more. that girl!!!! i do love her! ;)

eta - i did find flip flop pictures, but not a view of the back heels. hee!



ha! i did find a picture of her heels hanging over. see - i told you my pictures were unorganized! ;)

breakfast for two

this morning willsie climbed up next to anna at the table while she was trying to eat. so she so sweetly got some cheerios for him and they had breakfast together. but he kept trying to sneak a bite of hers. because, really, who wouldn't rather have lucky charms than cheerios? :)

bagel love...

i think the pictures say it all! ;)

vote for miley!!! again!

the next round of making memories idol has started and my friend miley has another AMAZING project!!! if you can please take the time to go vote. and tell your friends! :D
click here to vote!

addicted to actions...

i've finally found some actions that work in photoshop elements. i could spend all day playing with them. these use the orton technique. they are quite a bit overdone but these pictures were pretty blurry anyway. and i cut off the arch! ack! hee! i can't wait for spring to go back to that park to take more pictures!

bathtime for willsie...

our ducky bathroom has the worst light. it's on the loooooong list of things that need updated. so i had to take these with a very high iso. next time hopefully i can convince kurt to move the inflatable tub into a more well lit room. hee!

music, math, and munchies...

that was the name of anna's get together at school tonight. both kindergarten classes got together and sang some of their favorite fun songs and played math games and had yummy munchies. to sing the songs we all stood in a circle and all sang along. that was perfect for anna, who isn't always exactly excited about putting on a performance. ;) it was a fun, laid back hour. wilson was the life of the party. he was very enamored with mrs. anderson, the other kindergarten teacher. ella did a great job too - she joined in the activities and sang. i'm so proud of what a great job anna is doing at school. not only because of all of the things she's learned academically, but because of all of the friends she's made and how much she's overcome her shyness. saturday she is receiving an award for her writing. we're not exactly sure what that's about so i'll have to post more about that later. sorry, no pictures! no other parents had their cameras so anna asked that i didn't take any. :( maybe next time! ;)

ps - thanks to everyone that voted for miley! she made it to the next round! stay tuned for the next voting date! :)

idols all around...

ok. i know my friends miley and becca claim mr. chris daughtry as their own. but miley, kelly and i got to see him last night in concert, and i'm pretty sure i'm going to have to fight them for him. wow he is talented! and his band was great too! i guess if i can't have chris i could totally go for the guitarist with the mohawk. i'm not so much a mohawk loving girl but he has really nice eyes and plays the guitar great! :) we stood in line for about 3 hours to get in, so we were in the second row middle. wow!!!!!! we got sweated on by one of the opening band's lead singers. ok - that part was kind of gross. lol! but the rest of the show? fantastic!!!!!!! and we went to lincoln early for scrapbook shopping, lunch with stef, and anti-que shopping. does it get any better than that??? i think not!!! miley will be posting more pictures on her blog later (right??? :D) and since she is such a GREAT story teller i will refer you to her website to hear the hilarious details of our evening too. let's just say they involve a metal purse, a barbie and a tour bus sighting. :D (ps - i stole this picture and that last line from miley's blog - just so you know.)

and speaking of miley and idol, remember the last post where i asked you to vote for her in the making memories idol contest? (scroll down if not. ;) ) well... there was a glitch in the whole system and they are asking that everyone vote again. ack! so if you could would you please take the time to go vote? and tell your friends!

vote for miley!!!

for those of you that read my blog that are not scrapbookers, there is a scrapbook contest happening right now called making memories idol. kind of like american idol where you get to vote for contestants. my friend miley made it past the first round and now she needs votes!!! i think if you click here - http://www.makingmemories.com/mmidol/index.cfm?go=register you can register at the site, and then you will be allowed to vote. her screenname is baseballmom. and her entry is amazing!!!!!!!!

a sign of spring!!!

even though, as most of you know, birds kind of freak me out, i am always SOOO excited to see my first robin. and here it is! :D none too soon as anna and wilson have conjunctivitis - the beginnings of pink eye. holy freeholies! i think we've managed to catch every illness going around this year. ack!

cheesy french fries...

(one last post for the day.)
the girls LOVE to play this game called "cheesy french fries" in the tub. kurt squirts out long strings of foamy bath soap and the girls apparently think they look like cheesy french fries, i guess! i'm not quite sure what that means, but i know it's going to be an exciting, fun bath whenever cheesy french fries are involved. :)

button heart

i'm catching up on my blogging today - hee! sorry for all of the posts in one day! i was inspired by tia bennett's christmas button tree to make a button heart. anna was working on one too but she kept getting too many "holes" in her fingers. poor thing!

footprints...

i used to love looking out my window and seeing a perfect landscape of fresh fallen snow. but now i love this landscape so much more! :)

photoshop fridays

jessica sprague has a blog where she posts all kinds of great digital techniques on fridays. since there are usually at least 5 different ways to do the same thing in photoshop it's always intersting to see how otherpeople work. i have learned so much from her entries! here's a page using the technique i learned from this week's edition. sorry if you're seeing it everywhere - i had to much fun doing it that i think i posted it to every online gallery i have. lol! hope everyone is having a great weekend!!!!

free friday...

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everyone had the day off today! yay! we had some much needed fun family time together. we had big plans to get everything cleaned since mimi and papa are coming tomorrow, but that didn't seem to happen. oh well! we did get a round of cheerios vacuumed up, so that was a good thing! :) (we have a central vac that isn't too, too strong and kurt is holding it up to wilson's pj's in that picture where wilson is giggling at some long metal pole thing, in case you were wondering. lol!) we also ate lunch out at red robin. we used to go there all of the time in texas, since it was close to our house, it was in the shopping mall with target, toys r us, old navy, and the pet store, and you get free balloons. (does it get any better than that? lol!) i can't even really say that we've done much of anything since we got home from lunch. but boy is that nice for a change!!! i'm so in need of trying to scrap again - i think it's been over a month since i've done much of anything. and we have so many home improvement projects that need done. we really need to kick it into gear! hopefully tomorrow. (i think i've been saying that or months. hee!)

happy day after valentines day...

anna had the day off from school but ella had to go to school. it was so great for anna and i to get to spend some special time together. i feel like i hardly ever get to have her almost all to myself. she asked for popcorn and a slushie from target for a special treat. :) then we had a blast shopping at the $1 spot and getting 1/2 price valentine goodies. we also stopped at the bookstore and bought a series of amelia bedelia books. i am so amazed at how well she's reading! and those stories made us all giggle so much! we brought ella the book "pinkalicious." she was thrilled! :)

ok - i guess i will try to get to sleep since it's almost 11, but i'm still just a tad freaked out from watching grey's! how could they do that to us??? they can't end it like that!!!!!!