Today is Allie's 14th birthday! Happy Birthday sweet angel! Here she is at 3 months old and today as she turned 14 (with her best friend Eliana)

She invited a few close friends to a birthday luncheon at the California Pizza Kitchen. What a great place! The menu is like a catalog! The girls had a blast and then went shopping in the mall afterwards.

Allie's surgery is a week away so I will not be blogging again this month. Although tonsillectomies are pretty routine procedures, the fact that she's older will mean a longer, and possibly more painful recovery. So we're preparing to lay low with lots of Italian ices and a big comfy couch for a few weeks. In the meantime feel free to look me up on Facebook. I'd love to connect with you!

Memorial Day 2010

And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free.

And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.

~ Lee Greenwood

I'm a Making Memories Guest Designer!

Thought I would pop in a share some really cool news....The cards I created a couple of weeks ago with the April Citrus Tree Studio kit were featured on the Making Memories blog and Facebook page today. What an honor. Thank you Jenny! If you want to purchase the same items I used then hop on over and get your "Butterfly Skies" kit from CTS before the are all sold out.

CTS April kit "Butterfly Skies"

Today is my oldest teen's 17th Birthday. Happy Birthday my sweet Amanda! Here are photos of when she 6 months old and today as she turned 17...

She enjoyed a fun dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with a few friends and Grandma and Grandpa. I can hardly believe she will soon be a high school senior. Where does the time go? And why does it have to move so quickly. Now I know why scrapbook!

Finally...

Such a long time since I last posted. This is a busy time of year for my family. We've had 2 school performances, a huge Social Studies project (Allie received "Honorable Mention" for her diorama!), Mandy has been sick but still sat for a 5-hour SAT test Saturday, and I've had 2 papers due for grad school.
I'm also honored to be on a committee that is planning a farewell part for two faculty members at my daughters' school who are leaving after 20+ years of service. The party is the day before Mother's Day, and we're expecting over 200 guests! On top of that we're in the midst of preparing for a huge remodeling project. Needless to say I've had little time to play with my craft supplies, which is why I am grateful for this April kit from Citrus Tree Studio featuring the 8x8 Making Memories Flutter collection. Here's the kit:

This is a beautifully coordinated line - all the papers work flawlessly together. I decided to use it to make a few quick cards...(poor lighting alert! - a few of these pics reflect the bad weather we've been having. Will retake when the sun decides to come out of hiding...)

The trim and stamps are from my stash but the kit comes with all sorts of pretty doo-dahs and coordinating alphas.

I also used the Painted Prairie April kit to make this quick layout:

Allie worked so hard on her Social Studies diorama. She put in over 20 hours of work and rarely did she ask for help. The finished project won an Honorable Mention at the Humanities Fair. So proud of her effort!

The layout below was actually completed a couple of years ago during a class, but I was excited to have the perfect alphas finally arrive in the Citrus Tree kit for the title - these are fromPrima - love how they accent the photos...I don't have journaling on the front of my layouts, it's usually on the back...don't know why, that's just the way it works out sometimes!

I'm a lucky mom - my two girls love to cook! I really adore Allie's apron...she looks so cute, and wears it all the time!

Thanks for visiting! I appreciate all your kind thoughts and comments. You lift me up and make my day. Hope you are all well. xoxo

These cool pics made me smile today:

Photo courtesy of Ben Heine

A Week in the Life

Mandy with our dog, Cody, enjoying the weekend sunshine in our back yard. Notice the teen and her laptop - a common scene around here and an example of the moments I love to capture and record...By the way, Cody had his doggy sunglasses on moments before this pic was taken, but he lost them when he chased a squirrel out of our yard...

One of the reasons I started scrapbooking is to capture the everyday, routine (and not-so-routine) moments that are easily forgotten. I'm not very good with words so keeping a diary or written journal can be a bit of a chore for me, whereas capturing these fleeting moments with a camera and documenting them in a creative way really makes my heart sing. So I think I'm going to give this idea from Ali Edwards a go - "A Week in the Life" next week. I thought I would post the link here so you can have a peek if you don't know about it yet. What do you think? It will take a little effort and planning, but I have a feeling it will be worth it...

xoxo

Cris